User blog:Leechshadow the Ghoulhound/Making an OC: Appearance
Introduction Hello, I’m Leech, and this is a guide on how to make a Warriors original character. This will be about appearances. Eyes, pelt, and more! Important notes # I spell grey with an ‘e’ and colour with a ‘u’. These are not incorrect, it’s just my way of spelling it; the British spelling. While gray and color are the American spellings, so I don’t use them. # If you don’t understand something, ignore it. If you try too hard to comprehend something, you’ll confuse yourself, so just don’t worry about it. It’s just Warriors, they don’t care for genetics or correct terms. # Please correct me if I’ve gotten anything wrong or forgotten something. Eye colours Copper: brownish orange. Orange: self-explanatory. Amber: orangey yellow. Golden: bright yellow. Lemon: pale yellow. Green: self-explanatory. Hazel: greenish brown. Blue: self-explanatory. Heterochromia: In case you don’t know, “heterochromia” is when an animal has eyes of two different colours, or when they’re “odd-eyed.” For example, having one blue and one brown eye is possible in humans. It’s rare in any animal, but for cats, it’s most likely to happen to completely white or van patterned cats. If an eye is blind, it may be offcoloured, or the pupil might be lighter than the other eye. It’s likely to be more closed than the good eye as well. Fur textures Short: the most common. Self-explanatory. Pretty normal fur. Long: the second most common. Self-explanatory. Slightly longer fur. Curly: uncommon. Self-explanatory. Curled fur. Furless: rare. Literally no fur, likely having wrinkly, pink and/or grey skin. Wirey: rare. Springy pelts that look like the fur is sticking up on end. Pelt patterns Solid A solid (also known as self-colour) is when a cat’s pelt is only one colour, no white, not tabby patterns, just one blank colour. NOTE- when a colour is a lighter version of an existing colour (ex: cream being a lighter version of ginger) it’s called a dilute. Remember this- dilute equals lighter. The solid colours: NOTE- Ginger and cream cats are not true solids, they’re tabbies, sometimes with slightly transparent stripes, but they’re never completely solid, so they won’t be here. Cream: an orange dilute. Cream coloured (wow again). Black: self-explanatory. Grey/blue: a black dilute. Blue-tinted. So whenever you hear “blue”, it’s referring to grey. Lilac: a further dilute of black; a dilture of grey. Basically a lighter grey. Rare. Chocolate/brown: dark brown. Rare. Cinnamon: a dilute of chocolate. Very rare. Fawn: a further dilute of chocolate/brown; a dilute of cinnamon. Almost cream in colour. Super rare. White: self-explanitory. Any cat with enough “white spotting” (I’ll get to that later) will look white, but won’t be a “true” white. “True” white cats have blue eyes, and are often deaf, but in Warriors, deafness isn’t nearly as common as it is in real life. Tabby These are, without a doubt, the most common cat pattern. They have typical stripes, but come in different types (hey that rhymed). Types of tabbies: Mackerel: thin, narrow stripes like a tiger. Identified by the “m” on the forehead. Classic: thick, swirling stripes. Also known as a marbled or blotched tabby. Spotted: broken-up stripes quite like spots or dots. Ticked tabby: no visible stripes (besides face), but a gradient-like pelt. Tortoiseshell tabby: different to the other tabbies. Patches of two different tabby colours (ex: ginger and brown tabby patches), also called a patched tabby or torbie. Colours of tabbies: Brown: normally black stripes on a lighter brown background. The second most common. Grey/blue: dark grey stripes on a lighter grey background. Silver: dark grey stripes on a very light grey background. Basically a lighter grey/blue tabby. Rare. Ginger/red/orange: dark orange stripes on a lighter orange, or even cream, background. The most common. FUN FACT- Realisticly, only 1 in 4 orange tabbies are she-cats. This doesn’t seem to apply in Warriors, but it’s a cool fact!, Cream: light orange stripes on a cream background. Basically a lighter ginger tabby. Orange dilute. Rare. Colourpoint A colourpoint (or simply point for short) is what a Siamese is. They’re very rare. They’re super unlikely to happen in the wild, and never happened to a clan-born character in the series, but it’s here nonetheless. They have white bodies with colours on the face, legs and tail. This is because the cooler parts of the body have more colour. So, consequently, kittens are born completely white! There’s images for a visual representation. Colours of colourpoints: Red (ginger/orange), cream (lighter red), grey (blue), lilac (lighter blue), seal (a very dark, almost black, brown), chocolate (dark brown), cinnamon (lighter brown), fawn (and even lighter, creamy-brown). Cats with these patterns are most likely to have blue eyes, and also tend to be deaf, although, once again, the Warriors series doesn’t share this fact. Other Tortoiseshell/Tortie: A tortoiseshell cat is any two colours excluding white. Realistically, it’s much more common in she-cats then in toms, but in Warriors, this doesn’t seem to apply. Bicolour: Any colour and white. Could be tabby and white, or solid and white, or whatever. Calico/Tricolour: A tortoiseshell with white. Three colours, hence the tri, as it means three. Again, very rare in toms, but in this series, who cares? Tortoiseshell tabby/Torbie: Like a tortoiseshell, but rather than being something like black with ginger tabby patches, it would be between two tabby patterns, like brown tabby with ginger tabby patches. Van: A bicolour with a special pattern. Completely white, but with a different coloured tail (and small patches above it’s eyes). Normally, they’re white with a ginger tail (and patches above the eyes) with odd-coloured eyes as well, normally one green and one greenish-yellow. Tuxedo: A bicolour with a special pattern. Black with a white chest and/or underbelly (sometimes with white paws or tail tip), like it’s wearing a formal tuxedo. Albinism Albinism is when an animal has “a lack of pigment in the fur”, in other words, meaning they’re almost certainly white (at least in cats) and with raw, bright pink skin. Their eyes are most likely pink too, although they can sort of purple (called lilac albino) or a very pale blue. Do not mistake this as a blue-eyed white cat, as their eyes are brighter, and their skin isn’t quite as raw. Albinism is very rare, and there is only one recorded cat in the series with it: Pink Eyes. Albino animals are also more vulnerable to sunburn or frostbite, like furless cats. Scars (Minor spoliers ahead) This series has fights. A lot of fights. So scars and wounds are common. Not to mention other disasters that could damage or even cripple a cat. Extreme cases normally aren’t from battles. Both Cinderpaws (Cinderpelt and Cinderheart) broke their legs in different ways. One by falling off a tall tree, which did eventually heal rather well, and Cinderpelt, who was hit by a monster, and the leg was twisted, so it was forever effected. Briarlight had her spine completely crushed by a tree, and a spine can’t heal, if you have modern medicine or not, so her damage was permanent too (along with Wildfur’s). Brokenstar and Longtail were blinded, Jayfeather was born blind (so he was more adapted to it), and Snowkit and Dappletail’s unknown kit (which the “official” family trees claim to be called “Featherkit”, but I despise the family trees and will never see the, as canon) were deaf. They both died, but a deaf character could survive. Some much minor damages are having a twisted paw, like Deadfoot, which effected how he walked, ran and hunted, but he coped pretty well, even becoming a deputy. The losing a tail, like Halftail, sho had gotten his tail ripped off by a badger, which effected his climbing and balance, so it was rather important, and Kinktail, who had her’s run over by a monster, which, likely, would’ve had the same effect. Then there’s half-blindness, like Rain and One-Eye (who did become deaf too, but she was old, like Rock, who is said to be so old that he had become blind. Considering he’s at least centuries old, that’s expected.), which isn’t nearly as bad as full blindness. Then there’s things so small they would hardly tamper with a warrior’s day-to-day life, it at all. Such as nicks, cuts or slits in the ears, maybe to the point of having both shredded (which doesn’t effect hearing that badly, as the eardrum itself is fine), scarfs along the body, which, frankly, every warrior has, and losing a claw or whisker, which grows back like a fingernail. I recommend the most minor of scars if it doesn’t effect your character that much, or you don’t wish for them to have a significant, life-changing disability. Abnormalities Polydactylism A polydactl cat with an unusual number of toes (or digits) on each paw. A normal cat would have five toes on forepaw (front paw) and four on each back one. But polydactylism is more common they you’d first think. Especially in the wild, where it can spread rather easily, although there wasn’t many mentions of it in the books. Blackstar, for example, is mentioned to have six toes on one paw. The way the toes form is also different. Most likely, it’s an extension of the paw, looking like the cat has two thumbs, other times, the whole thing can be morphed together, just like a big hand. Sometimes, extra toes only happens to one paw, other times on all four. With two extra digits on each paw, cat can have up to 28 toes! Munchkin A munchkin cat is short. That’s about it. They have small legs, so they can’t run very fast or for very long. In the wild, especially in a clan, this can be a setback, as clan life has a lot of hunting and fighting, something a slow, small cat can’t do normally. It might be interesting to incorporate this into a character, and explain how their might overcome their biggest weakness. Also, they’re cute. Ear mutations Don’t worry, the “mutation” part isn’t harmful, it’s just an odd occurrence; mutations happen in very living animal. An ear mutation is something like folded ears. Ears flopped over can be a light disadvantage when it comes to hearing, but, honestly, they look adorable. Like curled back ears, which, on the other hand, would probably give better hearing. Other times, ears can be split in half, looking like a natural cut in each ear. But what’s even cooler is two pairs of ears! That’s likely to happen from one pair being directly in front of the other.Both are rare, but super cool, and don’t have that big of an effect on the cat’s hearing. As you can imagine, good hearing is needed in clan life for anything from hunting, to patrols, or anything else you can imagine. Like having short legs, small or weak ears can be a setback, but yet, a cat can work through them. It’s not like they’re deaf. If they are deaf, that’s more complicated to put into a character, but can be done. Deafness is most likely to happen in pure white cats (completely white with blue eyes) or a siamese, which wouldn’t just appear in the wild. That’s if you want to make it realistic, you do it have to. 'Tail mutations' This isn’t much different, just with tails. The most common tail abnormality is the bob tail, which, as the name suggests, is where the tail is naturally curled tightly in a ball, or bob, looking cute as ever. Something similar to this is referred to as a flank curl or a ringtail, where the tail curls around and is pressed up against the flank. On the contrary, a long tail can be curled and rung in what’s called a corkscrew. Something that appeared in the series in a stump tail, in Berrynose, who lost most of his tail in a foxtrap (and who was afraid of being named Berrystumpytail, which is very descriptive) or Halftail, who lost most of his to a badger. It can happen natural though, with nothing but a stumb. As you can imagine, all of these wouldn’t be partically good for balance, as that’s why cats need their tails, so having one would probably result in a bad climber. Final note Well, that’s the end of appearances. Remember, it doesn’t have to be too realistic, it’s Warriors! If Heatherstar can be pink-tinted, or Rosetail can be a grey tabby with a ginger tail, then yours should follow those rules, not real life’s. Be creative! Got any questions? Ask, and I’ll see answer what I can. Category:Blog posts